When in unfamiliar settings, it would be very useful for a person to be able to automatically discover who else was nearby, and also what other resources were near that person. For example, at conferences, meetings and other social engagements, discovering what people are near you would be beneficial. Further, many individuals would benefit from being able to discover other resources that are nearby. For example, a user of a mobile computing device may need to print a document, such as when out of the office, and would thus benefit from being able to detect the nearest available printer.
Proximity detection facilitates locating people and other resources that are nearby the user's computing device.